We Must Save the Environment – From the Environmentalists

By Seton Motley

The joke is so old and repetitive – because the joke that is environmentalism and environmentalists is so old and repetitive. Time and again, nigh every time environmentalists gather to gripe about some fairy tale or other – or to simply listen to tunes, turn on, tune in and drop out – they have left behind an environmental disaster.

Remember Woodstock? The 1969 Peace, Love and Narcotics concert in New York state? These “Love Your Mother Earth“Gaia worshippers – left the concert field looking like a nuclear trash bomb had been dropped. Ironic – given the Hippies’ “No Nukes” movement.

Flash forward forty years. Remember Occupy Wall Street? That was the second iteration of the Left’s series of failed attempts to replicate the germane grassroots magic of the Tea Party (remember the Coffee Party?). Occupy’s chief complaint was against corporations (about which they vigorously complained on Twitter, Inc. and Facebook, Inc. – via their Apple, Inc. iPhones and Samsung, Inc. Galaxies). Of course a component of their anti-corporation sentiment – was that corporations are destroying the planet. They’re evil, they’re giant – and they mass-pollute.

You know who definitely destroyed their little corners of the planet? Occupy Wall Street. “They…were…the 99%” – of the massive mess makers in their anti-corporate equation. They defecated and urinated on police cars. Because – classy. They lived in filth – and left it behind when they vamoosed. Leaving the corporations and straight-job-having-taxpayers they loathe to pick up the tab for their noxious tantrums.

Has the Left finally learned its lesson? Have the planet’s alleged physicians finally healed themselves? Of course not. The joke then – is still the joke now. Behold the Dakota Access Pipeline protest.

The environmental-disaster environmentalists gathered along the North Dakota-South Dakota border to protest a certain section of the aforementioned pipeline. And that gathering – was a donation-cash-cow.

In toto, nearly $14 million was raised in the name of stopping the pipeline (which they ultimately failed to do – as President Donald Trump signed off on its completion). “Leftist Volunteer Protester” is, as always, a highly lucrative gig. (Except when the Leftist paymasters stiff you.)

Now it is understandable that rank-and-file Leftist protest gadflies aren’t used to earning money – and are thus unfamiliar with the concept of income taxes. So North Dakota Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger issued a gentle reminder: “‘[We’re] looking at the entities that have potential paid contractors here on their behalf doing work.’…Mr. Rauschenberger said red flags will be raised if he doesn’t start seeing W2 or 1099 tax forms from those affiliated with the protest arriving at his office.”

$14 million for volunteer protesters – is a lot of coin. But it is way less than the $33 million taxpayers have already had to pay – to deal with the highly-compensated volunteer protesters. And along with the wasted money, thousands and thousands of civil servant man hours have been wasted babysitting them. If you live anywhere near this Leftist pipeline cabal and had to, while being robbed or assaulted, wait a whole lot longer for the cops to show – it is because they were diverted to dealing with this Leftist pipeline cabal.

And taxpayers aren’t yet finished paying for this Leftist mess. Because the Leftists – left yet another mess.

$6 million of the $14 million raised – went directly to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The Indians protesting the pipeline. The coin was donated to allegedly address three things: legal fees for their lawsuits against the Army Corps of Engineers, waste management at the protest site – and to offset Indian casino gambling revenue losses incurred because of the protest they were leading.

Get that last bit? They led a protest they knew would cost them money – and they had the audacity to ask people to compensate them for their self-inflicted wounds. The other two reasons for the titanic coin – make even less sense.

Legal fees? EarthJustice – the environmentalist lawyer group representing the Tribe – doesn’t charge its clients. (And EarthJustice is undoubtedly raising money its own self on their ridiculous pipeline litigiousness.)

Waste management? The protesters appear to know less about this – than they do about income tax: “Sanitation crews are working hard to dispose of six months’ worth of garbage from a community the size of Wahpeton or Valley City. The mountains of debris need to be moved before the spring thaw occurs….’Standing Rock Environmental Protection Agency and Dakota Sanitation are working together to try and advert an environmental tragedy,’ says Tom Doering, Morton County Emergency Manager. It’s estimated it will take 250 trucks filled with litter to clear the camp….Each load that’s dumped is inspected by the Morton County Sheriff’s Department.”

Get that? All of that cleanup work – is being done taxpayer-funded government entities. Not by anyone paid by the Tribe. And it doesn’t end there: “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has moved into the evacuated Dakota Access pipeline protest camp to finish the cleanup….”

Get that? The (again, taxpayer-funded) Army Corps of Engineers is being sued by the Tribe – and has to pay to clean up after the Tribe. While the Tribe sits on the millions it raised – putatively to pay for clean up.

Again, the anti-environment environmentalists joke – is a very old one. It wasn’t funny then – it isn’t funny now.

But it does make it nigh impossible to take environmentalism and environmentalists seriously.

Thomas Fahr “Tom” Steyer is an American hedge fund manager and philanthropist who is among the world’s wealthiest and largest supporters of radical environmental groups, left-wing causes, and Democratic candidates. Read more…